Imagine this: a carefully edited wardrobe, designed with purpose and released not on Hollywood Boulevard or at the Paris fashion week but in the concrete tunnels of an NBA arena. It is the place where the Canadian forward Dillon Brooks introduces himself before the start with a comparison to a red carpet.
The pre-game spectacle of the league is changing, and Brooks, in a nutshell, told CNN Sport that it is cool that we get to walk on our own little red carpet before we play our game of basketball.
A quiet walk into the locker room has turned into an event. The walk that goes through the tunnels, inclusive of flashing cameras, fashion bloggers, and fans who cannot live without Instagram, has become a cultural platform through which athletes identify, feel confident, and showcase their creativity.
Out of Suits to Statement Pieces.
Suits were worn by NBA players because they were the safe bet and expected options over the decades. The landscape of today is more confident, widespread, and infinitely expressive. Brooks accepts that numerous players currently engage in work with stylists, and the art of self-presentation is taken seriously now:
There are those who have stylists who are assembling their stuff. It’s growing, it’s progressing.”
New York Knicks guard and one of the well-known fashion leaders on the list, Jordan Clarkson, attributes the initiators of this style revolution to Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and Russell Westbrook, who launched the movement over a decade ago. Clarkson identifies Westbrook as a large contributor to NBA fashion, as a pioneer of sorts.
Los Angeles Lakers forward Jarred Vanderbilt considers the boom to be even more recent.
Five years back, there were perhaps three or four guys who were fashion-oriented. Now? You go to Fashion Week, and you have 20 or 30 players there. It’s definitely growing.”
It is indicative of how fast fashion is becoming the focus of NBA culture.
Through Repression to Expression.
The fact that fashion is being embraced as it is now is especially surprising in view of the history of the league. Following the infamous Malice at the Palace incident in 2004, Commissioner David Stern introduced a scandalous dress code with business casual as the new dress code. The oversized jewelry and baggy pants were prohibited, a move that most of the players, including Jason Richardson and Stephen Jackson, condemned as racially coded and limiting.
Even when those rules were in force, other players managed to be innovative. Clarkson is sure that style has its outlet:
I believe male creatives can do whatever they wish. Having loosened the code, people became ready to take a few more chances, yet, frankly speaking, guys were never going to be denied an opportunity.
As the league loosened the code in the course of the 2020 NBA Bubble, the dam burst. What had been boiling at the fringes turned into an outburst of a fashion movement.
Brand Fashion, Culture Fashion.
Nowadays, the NBA not only tolerates individuality but it glorifies it. Tunnel arrivals are promoted on social media accounts, official NBA channels, and sports media platforms on a regular basis, increasing the number of fans reached to millions. What could have been regarded as vanity has turned into branding, storytelling, and connection.
My Take
NBA fashion is not merely a fad; but it is a cultural change. To players, the court has become irrelevant compared to the tunnel in terms of branding. A head-turning fit will create a conversation, find new fans, and have a persona that resonates well beyond the basketball game.
And in the case of the NBA, it is a stroke of genius. The league is utilizing fashion, pop culture, and lifestyle, which go far beyond sports by making team arrivals become runaway moments. Every entrance into the arena is full of content, buzz, and participation of fans before a single basket is made.
In a world where stars are financial managers and financiers are stars, the NBA’s adoption of fashion makes it not merely a sports association, but also a cultural juggernaut of the world. The tunnel is not a point of entry any longer, but a runway, and the match begins much before the tip-off.
